“Jesus’ tears transformed Mary’s view of her Lord. When Jesus sees Mary and many others weeping over the death of Lazarus, “Jesus began to weep.” This is the only instance in all of Scripture where we see Jesus crying-not over Lazarus-whom he knows he will raise- but over the pain and suffering of the mourners. There is yet another extraordinary moment in this narrative. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” (John 11: 21-26) Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Martha goes out to meet Jesus on the road. When they arrive in Bethany, Lazarus has already been in the tomb for four days. “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” John 11: 14-16) (A curious sidenote here: Thomas-most famously known as doubting Thomas because he wants proof of everything-has already set his eyes on Bethany and the promise of a life that conquers death. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. Two days later Jesus announces, “Lazarus is dead. But Jesus said, “This illness does not lead to death rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” (John 11: 4) As we see often in Scripture, Jesus is living into a story so epic in scope that even his closest followers could only understand his meaning in retrospect. The story begins when Mary and Martha send a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” They expected that he would drop everything and come running to heal him. This is the defining miracle of Bethany, and the foreshadowing of Jesus’ death and resurrection. And in this welcome he teaches that the old rules about who’s in and who’s out no longer apply. If Jesus were not present, one of the men would likely have shouted, “get in the kitchen where you belong!”īut Jesus’ response to Mary is even more radical: he welcomes her. Women had no place sitting with men, learning alongside men. This is a radical departure from social norms. Her sister Mary sits at his feet to listen. Martha opens her home for Jesus to teach. Early on he was invited to stay in the home of a woman named Martha, the sister of Lazarus and Mary of Bethany. Jesus made many visits to Bethany during his three year ministry. We would capture the spirit of a small town on the Eastern slopes of the Mount of Olives just outside Jerusalem. A town which we would soon “discover” was home to some of the most scandalous, life-giving, sentient, and wholly miraculous moments in all of the New Testament. From his phone he read, “Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany-” He likely kept reading but all I could hear now was the melody and an invitation, “ Come to Bethany, come and be set free” and from there we knew we had the song. We all leaned into the sound of those words but none of us could remember exactly which woman it was, which verse it was, and whether or not the woman who washed feet with tears was the same one who annointed Jesus’ head with oil. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet….therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven hence she has shown great love.” (Luke 7: 44-47) “I entered your house but you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. The men were outraged but Jesus turned their contempt back on them. She lavished Jesus’ feet with oil and continued to kiss them. She wept at his feet and wiped him clean with her tears, with her hair. It’s rooted in the story of a woman-likely a prostitute- who scandalized the inner circle of Jesus’ day by daring to approach him as he dined. “Have you ever loved someone so much that you would wash their feet with your tears?” Stephan lifted a bow to his violin and a groundswell opened up in me. Hayden started to finger pick a little riff. The walls were glass and the sun warmed us as we worked. Go! I remembered a room I’d used for quiet study while getting my MA in Theology on that campus a decade before. We were given a prompt-a bible story, any bible story-and three hours to write it. Hayden Lukas, Stephan Nosrat and I had just been thrown together at the very first Songwriter Initiative retreat. It was a beautiful Southern California day in May. What’s Bethany? Why do I feel transported by this song? What does it even mean to sing those words?īringing a song to life is something of a mystery, but I think I can shed some light on its meaning. One of the things I love about a song like Come to Bethany is that it leaves people with questions.
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